Cheap Dead Ringer (Video) (Bette Davis, Karl Malden) (Paul Henreid) Price

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Customer Reviews of Dead Ringer

Karl Malden and Peter Lawford fill out the cast, but the film belongs to Davis, and she clearly relishes the film's every excess, owning the script like a tailor-made gown. Indeed, much of the pleasure in watching DEAD RINGERS is the fun of seeing Davis play with such little restraint, and the movie makes use of every Davis mannerism imaginable.

This movie will never make any critic's short list, and over her long career Davis certainly made a great many finer films and gave a great many more artful performances. But as a late-night popcorn fest for Bette Davis fans, DEAD RINGERS is hard to beat.

At long last, Bette Davis goes after...Bette Davis
Think of "Dead Ringers" as a cross between "Vertigo" and "The Patty Duke Show." What other film offers Bette Davis threatening Bette Davis with a gun? After attending the funeral of her brother-in-law Frank de Lorca, Edith Philips (Davis) learns that he only married her twin sister Margaret (Davis), because he believed she was pregnant with his child. Edith rejects all offers of help from Margaret, until she learns she is about to lose her bar, at which point Edith gets her sister to visit her apartment. After forcing Margaret to confess she had tricked Frank into marrying her, Edith kills Margaret, changes clothes with her, and goes off to live in the de Lorca mansion. The suicide note from "Edith" is found by Jim Hobbson (Karl Malden), a police detective who also happens to be her fiance. Edith successfully carrying off her impersonation of Margaret until Tony Collins (Peter Lawford), Margaret's lover, returns from Europe. He blackmails Edith for his silence and she gives him some of Margaret's jewelry. But when Tony tries to pawn it, the police end up checking out his apartment and finding arsenic. The next thing we know, Sgt. Hobbson is suspecting Tony and Margaret murdered Frank and he is having the body exhumed.

There is certainly something to be said for poetic justice and this 1964 film directed by Paul Henreid certainly lays it on nice and thick in "Dead Ringers." You cannot really take these shenanigans all too seriously, especially once Bette plays the big scene with herself and is obviously having so much fun. After all, the tag line for this one was: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, now who's the fairest twin of all?" This is not really a film, it is just a fun movie, where evil does not pay a woman can find one last moment of nobility in the name of love before she begins her final trip to San Quentin for an appointment with the gas chamber. It certainly is a lot better than Ray Milland's "The Thing With Two Heads," and do not ask me why that film sprang to mind.

Check out the bonus commentarys and documentaries on this!
According to DVDReviews.com: Bonus material will include a commentary by Charles Busch (Die! Mommie, Die!) and Boze Hadleigh (author of Bette Davis Speaks and the two interview books, Hollywood Gays and Hollywood Lesbians), an all-new documentary Double Take: Bette vs. Bette, the featurette Behind-the-Scenes at the Doheny Mansion and a theatrical trailer. Sounds like great fun!

And btw, Busch is also doing a commentary track with Patty McCormack on Warner's new release of THE BAD SEED!